Census push as deadline looms

Community leaders pressing to ensure residents participate

The 2020 census has faced challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic and date changes, but community leaders are working to ensure residents participate.

Initially, the census field operations were scheduled to end Oct. 31, but the Trump Administration filed a lawsuit stating the census needed to end Sept. 30 to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to figure out the data.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh filed a preliminary injunction last week to return the census deadline to the original Oct. 31 date, which was established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau Tweeted that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a target date of Oct. 5 “to conclude 2020 Census selfresponse and field data collection operations.”

Local community outreach leaders said the census helps in allocating federal funding for health care, libraries, schools, roads and representation in federal government, which is why residents need to participate.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, each individual counted in the U.S. Census is worth $27,100 in local federal spending over the next 10 years.

Those numbers also help determine how many of the country’s 435 members of Congress will come from Indiana. In the 2000 U.S. Census, a population drop cost the state one of its seats in the

House of Representatives.

Vanessa Allen-McCloud, president of the Urban League of Northwest Indiana, said she served on the Gary Census Count Committee — along with 25 other community organizations from health care organizations, faithbased organizations, nonprofits and local businesses — to get the word out about the census.

The group came up with strategies to reach residents: newspaper and radio announcements, neighborhood parades and setting up stands at grocery stores and flea markets, Allen-McCloud said.

When the City of Gary held food drives, Allen-McCloud said the group’s “census champions” helped 50 people fill out the census while they waited in line for food.

The group has also reached out to veterans and homeless to make sure they are counted, AllenMcCloud said. To engage students, the group set up a poster contest — with funding from the Legacy Foundation to give out between $100 and $500 gift cards to the winners — to spread the word about the census, she said.

Teachers brought the posters to the group, with contact information provided, Allen-McCloud said. Once the winners were selected, arrangements were made for the gift cards to be dropped off, she said.

“We just had to be creative,” Allen-McCloud said. “Our outreach right now, since we’re down to the wire, is to call the living assistance units and shelters to make sure that those persons have in fact responded to the census.”

Overall, the group is proud of its efforts, Allen-McCloud said.

“We’re very much optimistic that our numbers will increase and the City of Gary will receive the funds that will improve the quality of life among our citizens,” AllenMcCloud said.

Richard Morrisroe, East Chicago Acting City Planner, said volunteers have been reaching out to residents through media outlets and setting up tables at various stores. Digital outreach has been big in East Chicago, said Multimedia Director Steve Segura, as the city put out information on its Facebook page, made videos, sent newsletters and aired information on the local government television channel.

“We try to keep it in people’s face and ears constantly because we have to get the numbers up,” Segura said.

But, the COVID-19 pandemic did take away opportunities to reach out to residents, like providing information in schools and libraries, which closed in March, Morrisroe said. The city did provide census information to families through school registration, he said.

“We hope they have caught all our people,” Morrisroe said. “I don’t know that (the date change) effect will be. People may either lay back thinking they have until Oct. 5 or file in the next few days thinking its Sept. 30.”